The importance of soft skills

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​The term 'soft skills' describes a range of personality traits, non-cognitive skills and abilities, character traits and socio-emotional skills (Heckman & Kautz, 2012). People are not born with a fixed set of abilities and many of these skills are developed over their lifetime.

Soft skills include:

critical thinking and problem solving

creativity and curiosity

communication and collaboration

agreeableness

conscientiousness

persistence and self-motivation

adaptability

leadership

social and cultural awareness

enthusiasm.

These skills are important for individual development, academic performance and participation in society. They are also highly valued in the workplace.

Investment in children's soft skills

Early investment in developing children's social and emotional skills helps to:

establish healthy brain architecture as the brain forms

create a strong foundation on which higher-level skills can be built

provide ongoing benefits throughout life. (Centre for the Developing Child, 2015,p.8)

Building these skills early can have a positive impact on all children, especially those in disadvantaged groups.

A recent longitudinal study in nine countries conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has shown a balanced set of cognitive, social and emotional skills play a crucial role in improving children's economic and social outcomes later in life (OECD, 2015).

The study found that in New Zealand, the impact of raising the social and emotional skills of an eight year old reduces self-reported behaviour problems (e.g. drinking, smoking, violence, fights) at 16 years old by 15 percentage points, while the impact of raising cognitive skills is statistically insignificant.

Soft skills for work

As our work environments evolve, soft skills are becoming increasingly important in a variety of workplaces.

The growing automation and globalisation of markets has seen:

a decrease in the proportion of middle-skilled jobs

an increase in the proportion of low-skilled jobs

more demand for highly-skilled workers. (SHRM Foundation, 2014)

Employers are seeking people with a range of soft skills in both highly-skilled and low-skilled roles.

Research has shown that the bulk of job growth in the United States from 1980 to 2012 was in occupations that require high social skills such as managers, teachers, nurses, therapists, physicians and lawyers.

It has also been found that higher-paying jobs increasingly require social skills (Deming, 2017).

Jobs in the US from 1980 – 2012 requiring social skills and math skills

Further to this, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics project employment to grow fastest in occupations that are difficult to automate, specifically within healthcare, construction, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) occupations (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016).

There will be increasing demand for workers who have a comparative skills advantage. Even in highly technical roles a strong set of soft skills will provide that advantage.

There are skills gaps in many OECD countries that include technology and basic literacy skills. There is also a significant lack of soft skills.

That study also found that some infrastructure firms reported that they could increase revenues and improve productivity more through enhanced non-cognitive skills amongst their engineers than through advances in technical skills (Boven, Carter and Smutz, 2013).

In 2017 a large number of business organisations, including Xero, ASB, Noel Leeming, Vector and Sky City, published an
open
letter stating their intent to hire people without
tertiary qualifications.

Their hiring process would instead focus on assessment of the necessary skills, attitudes, motivation and adaptability to join their organisations, in conjunction with previous experiences in and out of the workforce.

The possibilities that technology brings are being pushed further and further every day.

There are new occupations in fields that only recently would have been taken for science fiction, for example:

cybersecurity

cloud technologies

robotics

'app' development

social media management

meta-data mining.

There is no certainty about the skills that will be required in this rapid changing environment. However, soft skills, particularly adaptability, creativity and critical thinking will be more advantageous as the world of work evolves.